The 2023 Major League Baseball season began with new rules, including the pitcher’s shot clock and between hitters to speed up play and the ban on defensive formations to get more on base; among other.
These rules were applied from the Opening Day and the fruits are already beginning to be seen, since of the 15 matches on the first day of competition, 10 lasted less than 3 hours and the general average was 2 hours and 42 minutes, which means a reduction of 29 minutes compared to the Opening Day 2022 average.
The game of the day that lasted the least was the confrontation between the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays, which ended the 4-0 victory for the Florida team and lasted 2 hours and 14 minutes. On the other hand, the longest match on Opening Day was the clash between the Toronto Blue Jays and St. Louis Cardinals, which lasted 3 hours and 38 minutes, although it should be noted that it had a 12-minute delay.
The impact of the foundations
Another fact that is attributed to the modifications made for this season has to do with the bases, the MLB changed the size of the pads from 15 to 18 inches, since they are larger there are more possibilities of robberies and it was reflected on the Day Inaugural.
In the first day of the Major Leagues there were 21 successful base steals in 23 attempts in just 15 games, a percentage of effectiveness in stolen bases of 91%, if we compare with last season, we had to wait until the fourth day of the season to that the 20 cheated bases were exceeded and on that occasion the success rate was much lower, just 67%.
Despite the criticism in the implementation of these new rules, it seems that MLB is doing well, since they are already beginning to see results in their attempt to make the game more dynamic and offer a better sports show.
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